Sermons of John Calvin, upon the song that Hezekiah made after he had been…Sermons of Iohn Caluin, vpon the songe that Ezechias made after he had bene…

So therefore the faithful have this assurance that God did not nourish them in this world as brute beasts, but he gave them a certain taste of his goodness, until such time as they might have full enjoying thereof after their death.¹ Even Balaam himself which never knew any thing of the law, yet he failed not to say: I wish my soul to dye the death of the righteous, and my end to be such as theirs shall be. He desireth to join him self with the race of Abraham, and yet he was a wicked & refused man And who maketh him to speak thus: even this, that he is there as upon the rack, & God wringeth ⟨p. 9⟩out of him this confession. Now if Balaam which was possessed of the Devil, and gave out his tongue to hire, to curse the people of God, hath been constrained to say thus, what shall we think of them that had truly profited in the law of God? But howsoever it be, true it is that the old fathers had not so clear and manifest knowledge of the heavenly life as we have at this day in the Gospel, and in deed the same was reserved until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And with good reason: for we have a good gage of our life in our saviour Jesus Christ, in that he is risen again, and that it was not for him self alone but for all his body. This is the full assurance that God hath given in the parson of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we pass through this world to come to the life that lasteth ever. The ancient fathers came not to such degree, they were not so advanced. But howsoever it were it is so that the taste which they had of the heaven lye life so sufficed them, that they rendered them selves peaceably to God. And we read not that they were greatly tormented in their death, as when Abraham departed, he made not lamentations, wailing and complaints, as the king Hezekiah did: but he was filled and satisfied with life, sayeth the scripture.² In like manner was it of Isaac and Jacob, who rendering the last groan saith: I will put my trust in thy salvation, my God. Though Jesus Christ had not yet appeared unto the world, yet Jacob had in him self a steadfast and undoubted hope, and made him self as sure of his salvation, as if he held it in his hand. ⟨p. 10⟩So then we see that the holy fathers were not in doubt or such mistrust, that they did not alway aspire unto the heavenly life, but that it was their chief desire to attain thereunto.